Mamata's Singapore visit: Invite to AMRI directors criticised

Politicians and kin of the 2011 AMRI fire tragedy victims Sunday criticised an official invitation to three hospital directors to join West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on her Singapore tour.

Charged with involuntary murder in one of worst fire tragedies that claimed 94 lives, the three directors - R.S. Goenka, Manish Goenka and Aditya Agarwal - have got official invitation to be part of Banerjee's tour starting Sunday.

The fire occurred in the hospital located in Dhakuria of south Kolkata Dec 9, 2011.

Out on bail, the directors presented the official invitation for getting court permission to leave the country.

"The court has granted permission and they will be leaving for Singapore soon," directors' counsel Salim Rehman told IANS.

Meanwhile, the victims' kin say they feel cheated as the Banerjee government is yet to fulfil its promise of giving exemplary punishment to the hospital authorities.

"More than two years have passed but we are still awaiting justice despite the tall promises of the government. Instead of being punished, people with blood on their hands are being invited to explore ways to mint money," Paromita Guha-Thakurta who lost her mother told IANS.

"A lot of us are still waiting for the job which the government had promised us and now this has come as an insult adding to injury," she added.

Political leaders too wondered at the sudden change of attitude of the Trinamool Congress government.

"First, they charged them with involuntary murder and lodged them in jail for months and now they have invited them to Singapore. This is a glaring example of the Mamata Banerjee's extreme inconsistencies. I wonder what made the change of heart," BJP leader Tathagata Roy told IANS.

"Instead of taking steps to arrest the flight of capital from the state, she (Banerjee) is indulging in a futile exercise. I wonder what made her discover the saint in the directors whom her police had lodged in jail for months," state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told IANS.